Nicole Petallides has been following the story of the Greek debt crisis for the Fox Business Network from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. As a reporter, you sometimes find yourself covering a story to which you have a personal connection, and for Petallides, this is one of those stories.

Her parents are Greek Cypriots, and Petallides’ mother was born in the northern Cypriot town of Kyrenia, where I lived for a while as child. Given our shared connection to the region, I asked Petallides, who’s an anchor and floor correspondent for the network, for her insights into the Greek crisis.

Petallides was at the NYSE today talking with traders as European finance minsters were scrambling to contain the crisis in Greece, which threatens other European countries such as Portugal and Ireland. The ministers delayed a vote on the latest bailout for Greece, pending the outcome of a confidence vote for prime minister George Papandreou.

“A lot of people think the default is inevitable and they’re just pushing it back,” Petallides said. “If you buy time and the default comes eventually, then it might be better than if it comes today.”

The longer the European Union can delay taking action, the better the chance that the global economy will have improved, which would reduce the impact of a Greek default on other EU members. If a Greek default happened now, it could undermine confidence in other weaker members of the union.

Concerns about the Greek debt crisis have roiled U.S. markets in recent weeks, and some analysts have raised concern about the exposure of things like U.S. money market accounts to the crisis.

Papandreou is expected to prevail in the confidence vote, but Greece has few options other than embracing another round of austerity programs. Despite the protests across from the Parliment building in Athens, many Greeks realize the country’s old financial habits aren’t sustainable, Petallides said.

“Many of the Greeks are coming to terms with the fact that they have to change,” she said. “The can no longer live the way they’ve been living because their country is in serious debt.”

Greece could avoid default, but the solution could be more devastating for the EU than a bailout.

“There’s still always that chance that Greece basically is out of the Eurozone, that they establish their own currency, then they could deflate that currency, and that could help get them out of their fiscal mess,” Petallides said.

That’s a scenario that’s been kicked around for more than a year, but it isn’t likely to happen. It would be worse than a default because it would discredit the Eurozone and raise questions about its ability to hold the rest of the union together.

Will Greece get another bailout? What impact, if any, will the crisis have on U.S. investors?